Saturday, November 19, 2005

Damn you, Julio M!

I intended to sleep in today. My body and my brain were both begging for a couple of extra hours of downtime.

But, in the words of Rene Belloq, "It was not meant to be, cherie."

Rene Belloq makes a profoundly bad judgment call, film at 11.

For, you see, I made an error last night that opened the door to the evils of Murphy's Law. I turned off my cell phone (which otherwise would have woken me up with the theme to Law and Order around 8 a.m.) But I forgot to turn off the ringer on my landline. No one's called me at an ungodly hour for ages now. If anyone does, it's likely to be my oldest sister, who likes to call people on weekends at 7 a.m., I swear to god. (Her lovely daughter reads my blog - she can verify this telephonic terrorist act, for sure!) Or my brother in Germany, who just enjoys being an early a.m. sadist from the comfort of early afternoon in Europe.

But my brother is currently visiting our siblings in Illinois, and I didn't anticipate any calls from big sister. So, a little forgetfulness on my part with turning off the ringer wasn't going to be a problem, right?

Wrong.

6:00 a.m.Ring. I open one eye and squint for the clock and fumble for the phone, panicked that maybe someone is ill or injured.

Me: "Hello?"

Gentleman Caller: "¡Hola Maria!"

Me: "Whaaa?"

Confused Gentleman Caller: "Maria?"

Me: "Oh, maaaan. You have the wrong number." Click.

6:02 a.m.Ring. This time, I look at Caller ID. I see "Julio Mxxxxx" with a local number.

Julio, Uberfreak Estúpido: "Maria? Maria?" (Followed by a rambling, casual Spanish monologue I did not understand.) Click. You would have figured from my very Anglo, very much en inglés answering machine message, he would have really gotten that I was no Maria. But, apparently not.

He hasn't called back since. But the urge to call Julio five times in a row at some bizarre hour and maybe speak in, oh, Russian or German, and just fuck with him? Well, it's muy, muy tempting.